BAGLIONE, Giovanni

This painting is one of a series of ten, representing the Muses by Giovanni Baglione. The paintings were received by Marie de’ Medici.

This painting was made in competition with Caravaggio’s Amor Victorious, but it is characteristic that Baglione’s painting was later considered a Caravaggio.

Baglione depicted an angel in full armour, which Orazio Gentileschi had criticized. This angel is shown chastising a boy Cupid, painted in Caravaggio’s style, with a sword of light.

Hercules in Greek mythology is the personification of physical strength and courage. Hercules at the crossroad (the choice of Hercules) is an allegory which depicts the hero choosing between the figures who personify Virtue and Vice, each of whom invites him to follow her. He chose the former. In this painting Virtue take the form of Minerva, the goddess of wisdom and Hercules’ mentor. She wears armour.

Baglione painted this canvas, alongside of another version now in Berlin, for the Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani. The two works follow on the heels of and make reference to Caravaggio’s Love Victorious, painted in 1601 for the Marquis Vincenzo Giustiniani.

The canvas dates to just before the famous court trial that marked Baglione’s definitive split with the circle of his contemporary, Caravaggio: it is thus a document of the phase of Baglione’s career in which he most closely approximated Caravaggio’s methods. Baglione was originally trained as a painter in the late mannerist style, and was active in major papal commissions at the end of the sixteenth century. He was the first painter to attach himself to the new naturalistic vision of Caravaggio, a style that had its official debut in that painter’s work at San Luigi dei Francesi in the Jubilee Year of 1600. While there is no doubt that Baglione modelled the National Gallery picture on Caravaggio’s Love Victorious, the artist took a completely new point of view. Uniting the figures to the dark background against which they stand out, he uses an intense and direct spotlighting that creates strong chiaroscuro contrasts. The legacy of late mannerism matrix is evident in both the compositions of the individual figures, above all the attenuated proportions of Sacred Love, and in the rich, complex attire, which departs from Caravaggesque prototypes.

Derived from the Psychomachia of Prudentius, the moralizing theme of combat between the vices and the virtues was interpreted by Virgil in “Omnia vincit Amor”. Later codified by Petrarch, the theme enjoyed a new popularity in the early seventeenth century. The face of the figure of the devil at the left has been identified as a portrait of Caravaggio. This canvas includes a satirical condemnation of both Caravaggio’s art and his moral scruples, making what is tantamount to a visual charge of sodomy. Divine Love interrupts a tryst between Cupid and the Devil, who turns toward the viewer in anguished surprise revealing Caravaggio’s likeness.

The painting is signed and dated: “IO BAGLIONE/R:F:/1602”

Baglione, a colleague and rival of Caravaggio, explored the subject of St John the Baptist in the Wilderness as early as 1600 and he continued to paint images of St John the Baptist throughout his long and productive career.

The probable model for the present version could be Caravaggio’s St John the Baptist in Kansas City.

Baglione’s tender image of an angel delicately extracting an arrow from St Sebastian’s side is indicative of the new emphasis placed on succour and compassion during the post-Tridentine period by the Oratorians and other religious orders. Images of St Sebastian bound to a tree and pierced with arrows had become increasingly popular from the fifteenth century on, partly because they gave artists an excuse to depict the male nude within a religious context. The inclusion of an angel tending the saint’s wounds is very rare, but undoubtedly reflects devotional literature that recounted how Christ sent an angel to untie Sebastian and cure his wounds. The angel can also be linked to the contemporary cult of guardian angels, who were believed to take the outward appearance of youthful boys. Similar guardian angels can be found in Caravaggio’s Stigmatisation of St Francis (Wadsword Atheneum, Hartford), Orazio Gentileschi’s St Francis Supported by an Angel (Museo del Prado, Madrid), and Baglione’s own St Francis Comforted by Two Angels (Private collection), which is dated 1601.

Baglione’s two paintings are among the earliest examples of Caravaggio’s influence on another artist. More irritated than flattered by the attention, Caravaggio openly ridiculed Baglione, claiming that he did not know a single painter who would praise him as a good artist. In truth, Baglione did not fully absorb the intricacy of his model. While in the St Sebastian he easily adopted superficial qualities, such as bold, raking light and fleshy, full-lipped faces, the carefully honed emotional depth of Caravaggio’s work was beyond his grasp. The picture is listed in the 1724 inventory of Anna Maria Sannesio, the last direct heir of Cardinal Giacomo Sannesio, who had purchased Caravaggio’s Conversion of St Paul after it was rejected for the Cerasi Chapel. There is a strong possibility that he was the original owner of Baglione’s St Sebastian.

This altarpiece is a characteristic example of the colourful late Mannerism of Roman art which was soon to be radically altered by Caravaggio’s revolutionary new style. It was probably commissioned by the Santacroce family in Rome.